


The Kindest Thing

by likethenight



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Break Up, Broken Engagement, F/M, Fix-It, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27208807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethenight/pseuds/likethenight
Summary: Violet comes to visit John at the New York Times office with a request, and a way out for both of them.
Relationships: Sara Howard/John Schuyler Moore, Violet Hayward/John Schuyler Moore
Comments: 9
Kudos: 63





	The Kindest Thing

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've ever written a proper fix-it fic, in nearly twenty years in fandom! I watched series 2 of The Alienist last week - and I can't remember the last time I was this cross about the ending of a piece of media. It wasn't necessarily that John ended up with Violet, it was the way it happened - after two series of the show building up John/Sara, and emphasising how unhappy he and Violet were already making each other, to throw that last curveball right at the end seemed a disservice to all three characters at best. I was deeply frustrated, not only by how the ending snatched away what the story had seemed to be promising, but also by how the story treated Violet; it is pretty clear that she and John are just going to make each other miserable, and she deserves far, _far_ better than that. 
> 
> So I fulminated for a few days, and then I wrote this, which attempts to engineer the circumstances for all three of them to forge a better, happier future, using Violet's visit to John at his office - only this time she is not bearing news of her 'delicate condition', she is asking for his help.
> 
> Not US-picked, though I've tried my best - if you spot any Britishisms, please feel free to point them out so I can correct them. :D

John’s heart sinks when he sees that it is Violet who has come to visit him in the newspaper office. It’s churlish of him, he knows, he’s not being fair to her, and goodness knows he needs to do something about this instinctive reaction to the sight of her, if they are to spend the rest of their lives together. It’s just that he’s already bracing for bad news, for her to tell him with the flash of her eyes and the tone of her voice about yet another of his many failings, his myriad inadequacies. It’s just that he already knows they are ill-suited, she’s way out of his league, he’s going to be out of place in that family for the rest of his days, the poor relation, only barely tolerated because he doesn’t care (isn’t in a position to care) about the true circumstances of Violet’s birth. It’s just that she isn’t Sara, and much as Sara is often letting him know about his many failings with a flash of her eyes and the tone of her voice, when she does it somehow he doesn’t mind so much because he knows, deep down, that she’s right.

“What can I do for you, my darling?” he asks Violet as she sweeps towards him, that damnable dog clutched under her arm as always, presenting her cheek for his kiss. 

“John, I had to see you,” she says, her voice tight and almost frantic. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Alone?”

His heart sinks even further, if such a thing is possible. This sounds bad, it sounds serious, and for a moment his mind goes to the engagement party, the darkened room and Violet in her underthings and his own inability to resist - well, he always did have very little self-control when it came to such things. Surely she is not going to tell him that - 

“I’m sure Bernie won’t begrudge us the use of his office,” he says, firmly cutting that thought off before it can grow. “Allow me.” He takes her elbow, ignoring the dog’s warning yap - they have never got on, him and that dog - and conducts her between the desks to Bernie’s office, closing the door behind them and, after a moment’s consideration, flipping the blinds closed too. Bernie is out at lunch, and so John thinks they’ll have a few minutes to themselves, in private, for Violet to say whatever it is she needs to say to him.

John leans against Bernie’s desk and watches as Violet flits nervously about the room for a moment or two, not showing any sign that she is actually planning to tell him what she has come to see him about so urgently.

“Violet,” he says, eventually. “You wanted to talk to me.”

She stops in the middle of the floor, turning stricken eyes upon him and tightening her grip on the dog until it yelps. 

“John, I - “ Her lips tremble, as if she is about to weep, or as if she is struggling to find the words to express what she wants to say. “I can’t do this any more,” is what eventually comes out, the words rushing and tumbling over each other in her haste to get them out of her mouth.

John frowns. “I don’t understand,” he says, “ _what_ can’t you do any more?” although a sudden, fierce, unwise hope is already making his heart leap, and he squashes it down, there is no place for it here, now.

“ _This_!” Violet says, gesturing frantically between them, her voice almost a wail. “This charade between you and me. I cannot continue it another moment.”

John draws in a deep, steadying breath. “Violet,” he says, “be clear with me. Are you telling me that you wish to break off our engagement?”

She nods, her limpid brown eyes filling with tears. “Yes,” she says; it comes out almost as a whisper. “I can’t do it. We’re not suited. I thought I could go through with it, and pretend, and maybe we’d learn to like each other. I know lots of people are married to people they don’t much like, I know it isn’t _about_ liking each other, but I don’t think I can wait the length of time it’d take you to learn to like me.” Her voice trembles, and John pushes himself off the desk to step toward her.

“I like you well enough, Violet,” he says, and it’s only half a lie. The tiny glimpses of her real self that she’s begun showing him have been revealing someone nicer than she pretends to be, he thinks; it’s only a shame she can’t be that person all the time.

“That’s not enough for me, John,” she says, the words wrenched out, bitten off as though their shape is physically painful in her mouth. “I can’t spend my life with someone who only ‘likes me well enough’. I need someone who’ll _love_ me. Someone who will put me first, all the time, because I’m the center of his world. And you can’t do that for me, can you, because there’s already someone at the center of your world, John, and _it isn’t me_.” 

He just looks at her for a moment; he can’t quite deny the truth of her words.

“I just need _someone_ who’ll put me _first_ ,” Violet says. “I’ve never had that, in all my life. Even Papa, he’s so wrapped up in his _newspaper_ , he has all the money in the world for me but none of the _time_. I just - I need - I want -“ She breaks off, looking imploringly at him, and John realizes that she isn’t telling him, she’s _asking_ him. She’s asking him to break off their engagement for her, so that she doesn’t have to do it. He’s almost paralyzed by the shock of it; he’s thought about the possibility of this happening, dreamed about it, more like, more often as he’s been drawn further into this trap of his own making, he just never thought it might actually happen.

And it’s not fair to think of it as a trap, he knows. It’s not her fault. She hasn’t entrapped him (although he has to wonder what she was playing at, the night of the engagement party); she’s just as much trapped in this as he is. When Sara turned him down he thought that his only option was to put himself up for one of these loveless society marriages; at least that way he’d be able to settle down at last, have a family, eventually, to share his home with, and maybe, possibly, he would learn to love whoever ended up being his wife. But it was never fair to Violet, and he’s beginning to think that her reasons for entering into this engagement might have been similar to his - to find something she wasn’t getting from those already close to her. They haven’t managed to give each other what they needed, as it’s turned out, so perhaps setting her free is the kindest thing he can do for her. 

“All right,” he says, slowly, trying not to let the eagerness he is feeling bleed through into his voice. “I’ll talk to your godfather. You’ve always deserved better than me, anyway.”

A tiny smile tugs at the corners of her lips. “You’re a good man, John Schuyler Moore,” she says. “Just not good for me. We’d have made each other miserable.”

“You deserve better than that,” he says. “You deserve someone who can make you happy.”

“So do you,” says Violet, and she closes the distance between them, leans up to kiss his cheek. “I won’t keep you from her any longer.”

John opens his mouth to protest, to tell her that it isn’t that simple, that it wasn’t her keeping him from Sara, a hundred other things, but no words come out. He still doesn’t know if Sara will have him, if they might be able to work out some arrangement that would give both of them what they want, some way they can be together without either of them having to forgo any of their dreams; but the way is easier now that the biggest obstacle is about to be removed. He feels terrible for thinking of Violet in that way, but - then again, he was standing in the way of her happiness, too, in the arrangement they’d found themselves in.

“Goodbye, John,” says Violet softly, smiling properly now that her plea has been granted. She takes off her left glove, slips her engagement ring off her finger, and puts it into his hand, curling his fingers over it to hold it safe, and then she puts her glove back on. “I hope you have a wonderful life.” And then she’s gone, letting herself through the door and closing it behind her, and John leans back against Bernie’s desk again, letting out a long sigh.

Then he takes advantage of Bernie still being out to lunch, and lifts the telephone receiver to put in a call to the office of William Randolph Hearst, to request an urgent meeting with him. He needs to tell Hearst that Violet deserves far better than John Schuyler Moore could ever give her. 

And then - and then he will need to speak to Sara, and begin to find out if they can agree on a solution. He thinks - he hopes - that after the conversations they have had recently, they might be inching closer towards finding some common ground together.

And then - suddenly the future looks wide and bright ahead of him in a way that it never has before. He imagines Violet’s future is probably looking similar to her, as she makes her way down the stairs and out onto the street to her carriage. She’s right, he thinks, they’d have made each other miserable; maybe not actively, but they’d have worn each other down. Hearst isn’t going to be pleased, but John thinks he can go hang. Besides, he’ll have another obscenely lavish engagement party to plan sooner or later, once Violet finds the man who can put her at the very center of his world. John doesn’t think it’ll take her long.

And John - well, he is going to take his chances with Miss Sara Howard, and see if perhaps she will consent to becoming Mrs Sara Howard Moore, on her way to becoming the greatest lady detective New York - and indeed the world - has ever seen. He thinks those two states of being could exist alongside each other very well indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, going by the conventions of the time, Sara would have become Mrs John Schuyler Moore, if she did indeed consent to marry John, but (quite rightly) I don't think she'd have taken too kindly to that. :D


End file.
